The sheriff's sale of a French estate on the Westside that was once the battleground for the bitter custody battle between screen star Judy Garland and Sid Luft was canceled this week after the parties involved negotiated a settlement.

The 6,255-square-foot house, which sits on close to an acre near the border of Brentwood and Pacific Palisades, had been listed at $8.1 million, which would have been the minimum bid. The Midcentury house has eight bedrooms and eight bathrooms.

In California, foreclosures usually take place without a judge's oversight. L.A. County has had only 12 cases so far this year in which a court judgment has resulted in a home being sold by the sheriff, said Misty Douglas of the L.A. County Sheriff's Civil Management Unit. Countywide, more than 4,700 homes were sold through non-judicial foreclosures just in the first quarter of this year, according to DataQuick, a real estate research firm.

In the case of the former Garland house, documents show four years of court filings — including lawsuits, countersuits, allegations of fraud, an attempted appeal and bankruptcies — leading up to the scheduled auction.

In Times news reports from the time of Garland's residency, Luft describes the singer as "mentally unbalanced and emotionally disturbed," claiming she had tried to kill herself at least 20 times and used inappropriate language in front of the children. She filed for divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty and objected to the removal of several items from the house, including some beds.

The Seattle CEO who raised salaries for all of his employees to a minimum of $70,000 a year, drawing accusations of socialism, now says he has fallen on hard times, the Washington Times reported Saturday.